An acclaimed Kara Walker sculpture, abstractions by beloved painters of the past and present, and a video about two lizards in Covid-era New York are among the 158 artworks acquired last year by the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, which revealed the newest pieces to enter its holdings on Tuesday.
Fifty of the artists behind those works have never before seen their art acquired by MOCA, one of LA’s top museums.
The Walker sculpture, Unmanned Drone (2023), is perhaps the most high-profile work of the bunch. It is currently on view in the exhibition “Monuments,” a co-production between MOCA and the Brick, and was created as a commission for the show. Formed from Confederate monuments whose pieces Walker reassembled, Unmanned Drone was named the most defining artwork of 2025 by ARTnews.
While Unmanned Drone rises 13 feet into the air, it is not the biggest artwork acquired by MOCA in 2025. That would be Olafur Eliasson’s 40-foot-tall 2024 installation Observatory for seeing the atmosphere’s futures, which was created for a MOCA show and acts as a kaleidoscope through which to view the sky visible above.
MOCA paid mind to smaller objects as well. In 2025, the museum also nabbed photographs by Lyle Ashton Harris, a ceramic sculpture by Magdalena Suarez Frimkess, and a drawing by Thomas Hirshhorn.
Also represented in the acquisitions are a range of big-name artists, among them Paul Pfeiffer, Julie Mehretu, Dennis Oppenheim, Paul Chan, Jonathas de Andrade, and Alex Israel. Below, a look at eight works acquired by MOCA in the past year.
